Blanche Stands Up for Arkansas Farm Families
The Democrat Gazette
By Alex Daniels
www.arkansasnews.com
WASHINGTON -- Members of Arkansas' congressional delegation say they share President Barack Obama's goal of lowering the federal deficit, but they slammed his budget proposal for putting too much of the burden on the backs of farmers.
Obama's $3.8 trillion budget request, delivered to Congress on Monday, would increase the size of the federal budget by 3 percent. According to White House projections, it would shrink the deficit from $1.56 trillion during the current fiscal year, to $1.27 trillion by the end of fiscal 2011, which ends Sept. 30, 2011.
But that projection assumes that existing tax cuts would be allowed to expire and that spending cuts in some areas of the budget would be enacted.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said too many of those planned cuts are directed at agriculture.
In his budget proposal, Obama would adjust farming policy, set in 2008, by reducing the cap on direct payments to farmers and lowering income eligibility rules for farmers receiving federal payments. Currently, farmers or farm entities may not receive payments if their nonfarm adjusted gross income exceeds $500,000 and their farm income exceeds $750,000.
The Obama plan would lower the income level, over three years, to $250,000 for nonfarm income and $500,00 for farm income.
"When we create these bills, they are contracts" with farmers, Lincoln said, referring to the so-called 2008 Farm Bill. If those rules are changed, "it completely throws their business models and plans off."
Farmers, she said, "always seem to get treated like leftovers," in presidential budget outlines.
Sen. Mark Pryor, also a Democrat, agreed, and said "we cannot balance the budget at the expense of rural America."
Rep. Marion Berry, a Democrat from Gillett, said the administration's plan to cut agriculture spending was "so predictable it's painful."
"Department of Agriculture cuts are embedded into the DNA of the Office of Management and Budget," the federal agency that sets budget policy, he said.
Berry predicted that the proposed farm cuts wouldn't go anywhere in Congress.
He said that two other administration plans, a threeyear partial spending freeze and the creation of an independent commission to propose ways to cut back the cost of entitlement programs were good ideas.
But he said he was skeptical about whether a commission would actually work, and that Congress ultimately must work out spending and taxing plans.
"It seems like they're jerking the chain just to suit politics," Berry said. "If they're going to have this sudden attack of fiscal responsibility, it would have been better if they had had it last year," when spending skyrocketed, Berry said.
Pryor supports a spending freeze and an entitlement commission.
"While reining in spending will not be popular or easy, I am prepared to make these tough decisions," he said.
Rep. Vic Snyder, who like Berry has announced he will not run for re-election, said the budget plan reflects the "challenge" of simultaneously trying to stimulate the economy and create jobs while addressing the growing national debt.
"It's the kind of budget that will make no one happy," the Little Rock Democrat said.
Like Berry, Snyder said that a spending freeze and entitlement commission seemed like good ideas, but "they should never be seen as a replacement for the legislative and political process."
The real action, he said, takes place in the Capitol.
"That's where we poundout our differences."
Rep. John Boozman, who is poised to formally join nine other Republican contenders for Lincoln's seat later this week, said Obama didn't go far enough in trying to cut federal spending.
"We've got to make some hard choices," he said, calling the proposal "unsustainable."
While he supports the proposed three-year freeze, Boozman said by exempting defense and homeland security programs from the belttightening, the freeze would only affect 13 percent of the federal budget.
"There are a lot of programs that are wasteful that we need to eliminate," Boozman said.
Asked which programs he's start with, Boozman said, "The president said he would go line by line," through the budget. "Evidently he hasn't had much success."
Boozman, of Rogers, said he was prepared to work with Democrats in Congress to identify programs that could be cut or eliminated.
But he expressed concerns about cuts to the U.S. Corps of Engineers' budget, which would drop from $7.6 billion to $5.9 billion.
Funding for projects in the Mississippi River and Tributaries, currently $340 million, would be slashed by $100 million.
Boozman also said he'd support the creation of an entitlement commission, but said he'd be "very much against" supporting its findings if it presented a plan that raised taxes. "We don't have a revenue problem," he said. "We have a spending problem."
Democratic Rep. Mike Ross of Prescott also backs the commission, saying it is supported by the Blue Dogcoalition, a group of about 50 House Democrats, including Ross, who consider themselves fiscally conservative.
Ross said the proposed spending freeze would be a good step toward controlling the federal deficit.
"I like that," he said.
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